One big happy pot and kettle family

Here’s your “Oh, Snap!” quote from Destin… and it’s a beaut.

“If oversigning is ‘morally reprehensible,’ what is playing more than a dozen arrested players over the last five or six years?”

— An SEC football coach reacting to Florida president Bernard Machen, who threw the above-morality card at oversigning. “Maybe if Florida oversigned a little, it could kick more outlaws off its team,” the coach added.

And to think some people argue that oversigning serves no good purpose.

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It sure seemed like a good idea at the time.

Is there better proof that most college athletic directors aren’t nearly as smart as they think they are than the “coach in waiting” concept?

Monday morning buffet

Nothing flavored with oversigning here:

• Phil Steele gives you his lists of returning OL career starts and % of lettermen returning here.
• And here’s his % of yards returning chart.
• About the SEC’s new “Masoli Rule”:  Masoli only stayed at Ole Miss for a semester without getting his master’s degree.  (But he plans to return, promise!)
• Todd McNair thinks he’s got a case against the NCAA.
• Matt Hinton takes a look at Greg Schiano’s anti-kickoff proposal and comes away intrigued.
• So much for the hot topic of moving the Big Ten’s championship game to a cold venue.
• Bill Connelly takes a (detailed) look at Mississippi State.
• Tennessee’s defensive depth takes another hit.
• “Don’t forget: Nov. 26th we’re going to kick their ass!“

Set out on an orange-and-blue platter.

Damn, I’m a Georgia fan, but reading Pete Fiutak’s rosy assessment of Will Muschamp’s situation this year, even I have to cringe a little for the Gators.

… The coaches are in place, the infrastructure of Florida athletics is peerless, and the cupboard is fully stocked with one of the five best talent bases in the country, if not No. 1. Everything is set up perfectly for a good coach to step in, turn the key, and win very, very big right away, meaning there’s more pressure on Muschamp than just about any other recent new coach has had to deal with.

Yeesh.  Of course, the best part is how Fiutak winds up hedging his bet before he even finishes his article.

… The season will be a success if … the Gators win the SEC East. Things might not be back to national title form quite yet, but it shouldn’t take much to be the best team in the division. The problem is the schedule with the three brutal road games against LSU, Auburn, and South Carolina, to go along with the home date with Alabama, which will make just winning the division and getting back to the title game a major achievement.

I wonder how many Gator fans think John Brantley is the eighth-best player on the team.

“Anybody who thinks there isn’t alcohol at Mountaineer Field is either naive or blind.”

After an eight-minute presentation and a 24-minute discussion, the West Virginia University Board of Governors voted in favor of allowing beer sales at campus sporting events.

But they did ban smoking in public areas of the stadium, so you know they mean well.

Reader Poll: The SEC’s new oversigning rules

It was fun surfing message boards, blogs and pundits’ opinion pieces this weekend to get a feel for the reaction to the SEC’s new oversigning legislation.  As you can imagine, responses were all over the board, ranging from warning of the Apocalypse to a stifled yawn.

The most interesting variation on the topic I saw was speculation over whether conferences like the ACC and Big 12 would benefit from the new rules.  Honestly, I’m not feeling it.  By and large, roster management is about players on the margin – recruits who are at risk academically and student-athletes who find themselves buried on the depth chart.  As Pat Dooley rather succinctly put it, “When was the last time you read about an impact player in the conference who grayshirted to start his career?”

Now I admit you can probably make a case that Georgia Tech could get some use out of Nick Saban’s discards, but the reality is that the schools that will likely benefit the most from Slive’s New World are located farther down the football conference food chain.  That strikes me as being especially true given that Georgia and Florida weren’t oversigning before the legislation passed.

But I recognize that others’ mileage may vary on this subject.  (Certainly the SEC coaches disagree with me on this.)  So, that sounds like a good topic for a poll today.  Weigh in.

And, yes, it would be churlish of you to point out that there’s nothing in the poll about how much the kids might benefit from the changes.